The Quality of Mercy
by PsychGirl
Summary: Blair reunites with an old friend, who turns out to be someone completely unexpected. My take on Grace Ellison.


**Disclaimer**: not mine, no way, no money, just love.

**Warnings**: mild slash.

A hearty thank you to the lovely women on the SenBetas list: Joyce, Sheila, CaroDee, Margie, ShayAlyce, and T.W. Lewis, for all their thoughtful and helpful comments and suggestions. All subsequent mistakes are mine.

Written in part for LiveJournal Sentinel Thursday challenge #156 – reunion

* * *

Jim unlocked the narrow metal box and pulled out the thick sheaf of mail. He walked down the hallway towards the elevator, sorting as he went. 

"Here you go, Chief," he said to Blair, handing him the smaller of the two piles. "Mostly credit card offers, it looks like."

Blair was leaning against the wall, waiting for the elevator. He accepted his mail from Jim, shaking his head. "What is wrong with these people?" he asked. "Don't they know I'm a penniless grad student?"

"I don't think they care, Chief," Jim replied. "I think that's the point." He leafed through his mail, glancing up briefly as the door to the elevator opened. An elderly woman started to exit, then stopped as she saw the two men flanking the door.

"Hi, Mrs. Simpson," Blair said, cheerfully. She sniffed at him, nose in the air, and shot a dark glance at Jim. She marched out of the elevator and down the hallway, pointedly ignoring both of them.

"Did you see that? That was _definitely_ a look of disapproval," Blair whispered in amusement as they got on the elevator. Jim glanced up again, shrugged one shoulder, and returned to reading his mail. He cared little what their neighbors thought of them. Blair reached out and smacked him on the hip with his mail. "I told you to keep it down last night," he teased, laughing as he dodged the affectionate cuff Jim aimed at his head.

As the elevator door closed, he turned the cuff into a gentle hand on the back of Blair's neck and pulled him into a kiss. Blair leaned seductively against him, grinning wickedly; Jim smiled back, but bumped him lightly with his hip. "After dinner, Casanova," he said. "I skipped lunch today, I'm starved."

When they got to the third floor, he left the elevator and entered the loft, shucking his coat and gun and heading into the kitchen to start dinner. Blair followed him into the loft, grinning happily and browsing through his stack of mail. "Oh, cool!" he said, coming to a dead stop. "A letter from Aunt Magda!"

Jim looked up from the kitchen. "Chief, you born in a barn?" he asked, motioning towards the open loft door.

"Oh, sorry," Blair said absentmindedly, opening the letter. He closed the door, dumped his backpack and hung his coat up, toed his shoes off, and headed for the couch, reading all the while.

"You never told me Naomi had a sister," Jim called out from the kitchen.

"Not her sister…" Blair muttered distractedly, clearly absorbed in the letter. "Oh, wow!" he burst out, grinning. "She wants to come and visit me! Oh, that'll be _so_ cool…I haven't seen her since we moved to Cascade." He got up, folded the letter and stuffed it into his back pocket, and came into the kitchen to help Jim with dinner. "Would you mind if she stayed with us? She's an artist, she doesn't have a lot of money, and I hate to ask her to pay for a hotel."

Jim shot him a glance, remembering sage, tongue, and furniture in line with the next harmonic convergence. "Who is this woman, Chief?" he asked.

Blair grabbed a cutting board and a knife and started chopping vegetables. "She raised me, more or less," he said, smiling fondly. "When I was little, Naomi and I traveled around a lot, but when I turned six, she decided that I needed to go to school, so we settled down in Santa Fe, New Mexico. About a year after we moved there, Aunt Magda came to live with us."

"I'm surprised Naomi was willing to send you to a regular school," Jim said.

"Yeah, well, she decided that, even though the curriculum sucked, there were all sorts of important things I needed to learn about peer relationships that I wouldn't learn if she home-schooled me. And Santa Fe had 'good vibes'."

"So, this woman – Magda – she lived with you and Naomi?"

"Yeah. And it was a good thing, too, because after the first year, Mom got pretty restless." Jim snorted, and Blair grinned. "You know how Mom is. So while she was off visiting her guru in India, or expanding her awareness at a meditation retreat in France, Aunt Magda stayed home with me. She was the one who picked me up from school, got me milk and cookies, helped me with my homework, took care of me when I was sick…in a lot of ways, she's as much my mother as Naomi is."

"So how did Naomi find her? She run an ad looking for an au pair or something?"

"Oh, no, we'd known her before that…she and Naomi met in the commune where I was born. She helped deliver me, actually. The commune had a really strict no-drugs policy, so natural childbirth was the only way to go. Aunt Magda was responsible for taking care of the kids in the commune, and she helped the midwife with births and stuff…it can be a really long process, and the mother needs a lot of help and support, 'cause she's supposed to walk around a lot, and squat instead of lie down to give birth, 'cause lying down with your legs in the air, that's just totally wrong for the woman, makes you work against gravity instead of making gravity work for you…"

"Chief." Jim put up a hand to cut him off. "More information than I needed."

"Oh, okay, sorry," Blair said, grinning and not sorry at all. "Anyway, Aunt Magda always told me that she felt especially close to me, because mine was the first birth she helped with. I don't remember the commune very well, really…we left when I was about three years old. About a year after we had settled in New Mexico, Naomi got in touch with her and convinced her to come move in with us."

"How long has it been since you've seen her?" Jim was starting to get interested in spite of himself. It comforted him to know that Blair had had a stable maternal presence in his life as he was growing up. Not that Naomi didn't love her son, he knew she did…she was just a bit of a flake. It would be nice to meet some of the people Blair considered family. Plus, he wouldn't mind hearing about some more of his lover's childhood antics.

"We moved to Cascade when I was 14. Something about the Sun entering Aquarius and it was vitally important to be near water when the planets aligned. Naomi begged Magda to come with us, but she wouldn't. She had started making pottery at that point, had just opened a small studio and gallery, and she didn't want to leave New Mexico. I've always gotten cards and letters from her, over the years, but once I started at Rainier I couldn't really afford the time or the cash it would take to visit, and she's not exactly flush either…." He trailed off. "Seems kinda stupid now, to have let that get in the way for so long…"

Jim tousled his hair affectionately. "Sometimes time gets away from you, Chief." He turned to face Blair, leaning one hip against the kitchen counter. "If she stays here, she'll find out about us. That okay with you? She won't freak out?"

Blair shook his head, waving his hands emphatically in the air. "No way, man, she's totally cool. Commune, remember? Very liberal." He gave Jim a radiant smile. "So it's okay with you?"

Jim sighed inwardly. He couldn't refuse Blair anything that made him that happy. "Yeah, okay, I guess she can stay here," he said.

"Thanks, man, I really appreciate it." Blair wiped his hands off and headed out of the kitchen. "I'm gonna call her right now."

"Just tell her to go easy on the sage, okay, Chief?"

* * *

He was so excited, he couldn't sit still. Magda was going to be here at any moment. He wandered into his old room. He and Jim had cleaned it up, organized and put away most of his books and papers, and generally tried to make it into an acceptable guest bedroom. The flowers he'd bought this afternoon were the perfect touch. Made it seem homier, more welcoming, less like an office. 

He went into the kitchen and checked on his preparations for dinner. He couldn't remember having felt this nervous in a while. Certainly not when Jim and Naomi had first met. Of course, then, he and Jim had just been friends, and he'd been more concerned about Naomi doing things to upset Jim's routine than how they would get along. Now that he and Jim were together…well, he just really wanted Magda to like Jim, and wanted Jim to like her.

He heard footsteps coming down the hallway and practically bounded to the door, yanking it open. Jim raised an eyebrow at him as he entered the loft. "I take it she's not here yet, huh?" he said, smiling slightly.

"No," Blair said, trying not to let frustration and anxiety show in his voice. "She should be here any minute now, though."

Jim took off his coat and shoulder holster and hung them up. He went into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water, looking appreciatively at the ingredients laid out on the counter. "Smells good. What's for dinner?"

"Chicken Marsala," Blair replied absently, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

Jim settled on the couch to read the newspaper, but had no sooner unfolded it then he turned to Blair. "Chief," he said, tapping his ear and pointing to the door. "Elevator."

Blair was out the door and halfway down the hallway by the time the elevator door slid open. A tall, slender woman got out, carrying a battered brown leather satchel. She saw Blair and a bright smile spread across her face. "Blair, sweetheart!" she said, enveloping him in a warm hug. "Look at you, you're all grown up!"

He returned the hug enthusiastically. "Aunt Magda, it's so good to see you! It's been way, way too long." She hadn't changed a bit, really. Her hair was more salt-and-pepper now than dark, but she still wore it in that long braid down her back. She had a few more lines in her face as well, but essentially she looked exactly the same as he remembered. "I'm so glad you're here! Was your trip okay?" He picked up her satchel and took her hand as they headed towards the loft. "I bet you're starved. I've got everything ready for dinner, but first I want you to meet someone." As they entered the loft, he saw Jim fold up the newspaper and rise to greet them. "Aunt Magda, this is my partner, Jim Ellison…" He stopped and looked back at her, because she suddenly had his hand in a painfully tight grip.

"Jimmy?" she whispered, her face gone bloodless and pale.

Blair turned to look at Jim. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

"Mom?" Jim said hoarsely.

* * *

The silence stretched out until Blair thought his nerves would shatter. He looked back at Magda. He had watched a myriad emotions cross her face after she had seen Jim; surprise, fear, guilt, regret…and joy. Now she just seemed sad, staring across the room at Jim with a profound look of misery on her face. 

He shifted his gaze over to Jim, wanting desperately to offer some comfort, some kind of buffer for what had to be an overwhelming shock. But Jim had closed up completely. Eyes hooded, arms crossed over his chest, he stood and stared at Magda with a complete lack of expression. Blair hadn't seen him this shut down since…well, never, really. Even when Jim had come to his office that first time, there'd been some emotion showing. He'd been scared that he was losing his mind, angry that he couldn't control his senses, hopeful that Blair could do something to help him. Now, there was nothing. It was like he was made of stone.

And he felt trapped between the two of them, caught, as if he was the apex of some weird relationship triangle. Magda still held his hand in a tight grip. Jim hadn't so much as looked at him since he had realized who she was. Blair realized that it was going to be up to him to break the silence. "So," he ventured quietly, "could somebody please explain what's going on here?"

Magda sighed then, a soft exhale of breath that made her look smaller, as if she'd shrunk in on herself. "I guess that would be up to me," she said. She cast a pleading look at Blair. "Could I trouble you for a cup of tea, sweetheart?" she asked him plaintively.

Her appeal shook him into motion. "Of course," he replied. He took her gently by the elbow and led her to the couch, seated her there. Jim retreated – there was really no other word for it – to the yellow armchair and sat there, arms still crossed, managing to somehow give the impression that he was still standing at attention. Blair dropped Magda's satchel at the door to his old room, went into the kitchen, and started the kettle.

When he returned, with three cups of tea, it was as if no time had passed. Jim sat in the exact same position, and he didn't even blink when Blair put a cup of tea in front of him. Magda sat looking at her hands, twisting them together in her lap. When Blair put the cup down in front of her she started, then wrapped her hands around it. "Thank you, Blair," she breathed, taking a sip of tea. Blair parked himself on the loveseat with his own mug and waited for her to start.

"I met your father in 1956 when he was a freshman at Harvard," she said quietly, not looking directly at Jim, but clearly addressing him all the same. "It was the first time he had ever been outside of Cascade. I was only 16 years old, but having been born and raised in Boston, my friends and I thought it was fun to go to Cambridge on Saturday nights. We dreamed of meeting a 'Harvard man', maybe even marrying one. After we'd graduated from college, of course." She gave a sad, nostalgic smile.

"Your father was different then. Impulsive, brilliant, passionate, idealistic, filled with a zeal for life that was exhilarating. He was a voracious reader – fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays – whatever he could get his hands on. One night after we'd had a fight he sat outside my window and recited Whitman until I agreed to go out with him again." She smiled again. "We were both headstrong and stubborn, so of course we fought a great deal. But we always made up." Her smile vanished. "That was the problem, as it turned out."

Blair stole a glance at Jim, but he hadn't moved so much as an inch. His head was tilted downwards and Blair couldn't see his eyes.

Magda took another sip of tea. "We were young, very young, and we were in love, and we weren't always…careful. I got pregnant." She sighed, and put the cup carefully on the table. "William dropped out of school and we got married. We thought at first we'd stay in Boston, but…my father was furious with me, furious with us. He was a minister," she smiled ruefully, "and had wanted me to go to college. I told him I still planned to go, I'd just have to wait a little bit, but he wouldn't hear anything I -- or William -- said. He threw us out of his house and disowned me. I haven't been back since."

She sat and stared at her hands, gripping each other tightly in her lap. "So we moved back to Cascade. William said his father would get him into the family business, help us get started." She looked up and gave Jim a warm smile. "Then you were born, Jimmy, and then Steven. Everything was wonderful, for those first few years."

"But William changed. I don't know if it was the stress of having to provide for a family, or if it was because his dreams of going to college were dashed, or both, but he became cold and withdrawn, uncommunicative. He spent all his time working, rarely spent time with me or you boys." She sighed. "He wasn't the person I had fallen in love with anymore. And I was so unhappy. I loved you and Steven, but I felt trapped in a life that I didn't want. I hadn't imagined things turning out that way. It was the beginning of a new decade, and there were such exciting things going on – Kennedy had just been elected president, we were heading out into space – there was just this great youthful energy in the world, overturning all the old, stodgy ways our parents did things. But I felt like I was trapped back in the old way of doing things, trapped in the old expected role of wife and mother when I'd wanted to be free."

She stopped, took a deep breath, and Blair saw tears glimmering underneath her eyelashes. He went into the bathroom, brought out a box of tissues and offered her one. "Thank you, dear," she whispered, wiping her eyes. "I was being very selfish, I see that now, and stupid. I was focusing on what I wanted, what I didn't have, rather than what I did. In many ways I think my father was right – I wasn't old enough for the responsibility of marriage and children. I did some very stupid things, things I regret a great deal. And one of these was that I had an affair with a neighbor of ours, one of William's colleagues – a man named Karl Heydash."

Blair fought to keep his composure and looked over at Jim apprehensively. He thought he saw Jim flinch, arms tightening almost imperceptibly across his chest. Magda didn't seem to notice. _She doesn't know_, he thought, _she couldn't know_. He felt a swell of fear for his partner, that it would all be too much to take, that he would simply implode under the weight of all the emotions, all the secrets and the lies.

"William found out, of course," Magda continued. "I broke it off immediately, but the damage was too great to fix, at that point. William was livid. He refused to divorce me, though, insisting that he wasn't going to create a spectacle for the neighbors to gossip about. He wouldn't go to a marriage counselor, either." Her lips twisted ruefully. "We had our own little Cold War going on in the Ellison household. I had thought I was unhappy before, but this was worse. And I knew that it had to be affecting you and Steven. I tried to keep it away from you, but I knew that you had to be aware of it."

Her gaze drifted out the balcony windows and her voice grew quiet and distant. "To this day I don't know how I came to the decision to leave. I just knew I couldn't stay in that house anymore. I couldn't breathe. I felt as if who I was, my personality, my soul, was eroding, slowly fading out…that one day I just wouldn't wake up, wouldn't be there anymore. My body would be there, but my spirit would have been crushed." Blair saw her lips tremble suddenly, and she pressed her hand to her mouth briefly. "You may not believe me," she went on, her voice thick with tears, "but leaving you and Steven…that was the hardest thing I've ever done."

Blair wanted to go to her and hold her, but felt somehow as if he would be betraying Jim if he did. It was as if he was the equilibrium point in the room, balancing between the two, and if he tipped to one side or the other, everything would come apart. He looked over at Jim. Jim hadn't moved since that one, brief flinch. He still sat stiffly on the edge of the armchair, arms crossed, head down. Blair couldn't read him at all.

Magda inhaled deeply and turned her attention back to her hands, twisting together in her lap. "I'd kept in touch with a few friends from high school. One of them had gone to Berkeley; after she graduated, she started living in a commune in the Berkeley hills. She'd invited me to come visit her. So I got a few clothes and some money together and hitchhiked to California."

"That was where you met Naomi. That was the commune where I was born," Blair said, in a low voice.

Magda gave him a wistful smile. "Yes. Naomi came to the commune about a year after I did, very pregnant. She and I became friends almost immediately, despite the age difference between us." She sobered and looked over at Jim. "Paradoxically, it was being in the commune that started to make me realize how selfish I had been, earlier. Everyone worked together, everyone shared things. People didn't think only of themselves, but thought in terms of what was best for the group as a whole. I realized that I hadn't always been thinking of what was best for you and Steven. I started to see what a mistake I had made by leaving. There were other things I could have done, other ways I could have reacted that wouldn't have hurt the two of you so much. That was why I wanted to help with the children – I hoped, in some small way, that I might be able to start to atone for some of my mistakes."

"Why didn't you try to see us, or call us?" Jim asked, in a stark, even voice. Blair glanced over at him in trepidation, but he still hadn't moved, hadn't even made eye contact with Magda.

She pressed her lips together tightly for a few moments, tears quivering on her lashes. "I wanted to, very much. I hoped, maybe, once I got settled, I could visit both of you, maybe have you come live with me for a while. But William wouldn't allow it." She took a deep breath. "He agreed to divorce me, even insisted on paying me a yearly alimony, but he flatly refused to let me see or even speak to you two. He said you were better off without me in your lives. And I wasn't sure that he was wrong. The things I'd done, the mistakes I'd made…he told me he'd fight me if I tried to go to court, that he'd tell the whole story, that I'd given up all my rights when I had abandoned you." Her voice broke at this, and she pulled another tissue from the box.

Blair felt his throat tighten in sympathy. "So," he said gently, seeking some way to comfort her, "you stayed at the commune until you came to live with Naomi and me?"

"No," she said quietly, her expression becoming lost and forlorn. She sat quietly for a few moments, as if marshaling her nerve; her hands in her lap, nervously picking at the tissues. She sighed. "In the early 1970's, things started to get better. I was happy at the commune and felt that I was making an important contribution. And William was becoming more open to the possibility of letting me see you and Steven. Perhaps he was softening with time, or perhaps he was just starting to feel the strain of being a single parent. In any event, we started to talk about having me come to see you, maybe even having one or both of you come live with me for a short time." She smiled ruefully. "Of course, we argued about that. In the commune, we had to discuss it, arrive at a consensus about whether and how others could visit. William was impatient; he wanted me to just make the decision. He didn't understand what communal living was all about."

"But then everything got turned upside down. Karl, the man I'd had an affair with, was murdered. It was one of a series of killings…the "Country Club Strangler", that's what they called the man who did it…"

Blair interrupted her. "We know…Jim was the one who found Karl's body."

Magda gasped and turned pale, her hand going to her throat. She looked over at Jim. "My God, Jimmy…I didn't know…William never said anything to me…"

"He…Karl Heydash, that is…was kind of a mentor to Jim when he was a kid. Kind of a father figure." He knew Jim wouldn't thank him for revealing that, but he was desperate to do something to protect his partner. Those memories had been hard enough to relive the first time around. Jim raised his head and met Blair's eyes briefly; Blair thought he saw a flash of gratitude in the ice-blue eyes. Then Jim turned his head and gazed out of the windows, jaw muscle clenched.

Magda was still staring at Jim, looking pale and shocked. "I'd asked him to look after you and Steven. After the affair ended, we didn't see each other, of course, but he was a good man, kind, and always fond of you two. I'd hoped that, if he could be a presence in your lives, it might help…" she trailed off.

"You said that everything was turned upside down," Blair reminded her gently. "What happened next?"

She turned back to him, looking startled, as if in learning about Jim's difficulties she'd forgotten about her own. "Oh…yes…." She sighed. "Karl's death destroyed the growing rapport between William and me. Maybe it was because it reminded him of the affair…he grew cold and distant again, wouldn't talk to me about what was going on, wouldn't talk anymore about letting me visit."

She sighed again, deeper. "I…I didn't deal well with it. Both Karl's death and William's retreat. I'd been so close to seeing you and Steven again, having you back in my life…and then it was jerked away. I went…I went a little…crazy…." She looked down at her lap again, at her hands convulsively shredding the tissues. "I left Berkeley and moved into another commune, up on the coast, north of San Francisco…a much more…experimental…commune. Not as focused on communal living, not as well-organized…with very few proscriptions on members' behavior. I'd wanted to leave my old self, my old life, behind…become someone completely different, completely new. I did things there…things I'm still ashamed of…." She trailed off, closing her eyes and swaying slightly, as if even the memory was physically too hard to bear.

Blair reached forward and put his hand on her knee, trying to reassure and comfort her with the simple touch. She opened her eyes and smiled at him gratefully, her look so like Jim's that he was momentarily robbed of breath.

"I…I ended up being hospitalized," she continued slowly. At Blair's look, she added, "Not for medical reasons…for…for psychiatric treatment. I hadn't wanted it, at first, but I came around, slowly. And it was helpful, for the most part."

"I didn't know…" Blair whispered.

She smiled at him ruefully. "I know. This all started shortly after Naomi and you left the commune in Berkeley. And Naomi and I decided we didn't want you to know."

"Naomi knows?" Blair asked, astonished.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I'd lost touch with her after I left, but when you settled down in New Mexico, she contacted some friends that we'd lived with in Berkeley, and eventually managed to track me down in the hospital in California." She smiled faintly. "She was a lifesaver, really. I didn't have any idea where I would go or what I would do once I left the hospital. She asked me to come and live with you two in New Mexico, to help her take care of you." She squeezed his hand, still on her knee. "It was exactly what I needed. I was back among friends, people who cared about me, and I was able to take care of you, watch you grow up. I'd always felt a special attachment to you, Blair; maybe because Naomi and I were so close, maybe because you were the first child I'd helped deliver. Helping Naomi raise you…well…it helped me get my balance back, gave me something positive to do with my life again."

She looked over at Jim, her gaze sorrowful. Jim had turned away from the window and was staring down at the floor. "After the hospitalization, I gave up on ever having you and Steven back in my life," she said bleakly. "I knew William wouldn't allow it, once he'd found out where I'd been, what I'd been doing. And even though you were an adult – and Steven nearly so – and could make your own choices…." She trailed off and stared down at her lap, the misery in her eyes so stark that Blair felt a lump rise in his throat. "I didn't think I deserved it. I'd never been anything like a mother to you two, never done anything but caused you both pain. I didn't see why you should _want_ me in your life."

Jim cleared his throat. Blair watched him for a moment, but when it was clear that no other response was forthcoming, he turned back to Magda. "It…it must have been a shock to you when Naomi decided to move to Cascade," he said, forcing the words past the lump still lodged in his throat.

She smiled faintly. "She begged me to come with you, tried for weeks to convince me to change my mind. But I just couldn't. I couldn't come back to Cascade." She sighed and stroked Blair's hair. "That's why I never came to visit you before, sweetheart," she said sadly. "I told you I was too busy, but I just couldn't bear to come back here. Too many painful memories."

A heavy silence fell between the three of them. Blair, for the first time he could remember, felt at a complete loss for words, his head spinning from what Magda had told them. Magda sat quietly, looking at Jim with sorrow and regret. Jim still looked as though he were made of stone. But suddenly, he cleared his throat again and stood up.

"Going for a walk, Chief," he said flatly. "Don't wait up." He left the loft, grabbing his coat on the way out. Blair watched him go apprehensively, worried about his partner's emotional state but slightly mollified when he realized that Jim had left the keys to the truck behind. At least he wasn't driving.

"Do you think he's going to be all right?" Magda asked tentatively.

"I don't know," Blair said quietly, still staring at the loft door.

He heard her sob, and turned back to see her with her face in her hands. "Oh, God, Blair, I'm so sorry. I swear I didn't know this would happen. I didn't mean to…I didn't want…I wouldn't have…." Her words dissolved in a flood of tears.

Blair moved to the couch next to her and put his arms around her, pulled her against his chest. He stroked her hair, murmuring words of comfort. Even though she was taller than him, she felt frail and small in his arms. He held her, rocking her gently, until her crying subsided. Once she had regained her composure, she pulled away from him, accepting another tissue and looking down at her lap, embarrassed. "I can't imagine what you think of me," she said.

"I think you're my Aunt Magda," Blair said firmly and resolutely, "and you always will be." He took her chin in his hand and turned her face so he could look into her eyes. "I love you, and nothing you've done, before or since we met, will change that. Ever."

She smiled at him gratefully and patted his cheek, looking as though she was about to burst into tears again. "You've grown up into such a wonderful young man, Blair…Naomi must be very proud of you."

_A lot of that is because of you_, he wanted to tell her, but he held back. There'd be time enough for that later. It was getting late, and it had been an emotional evening. "Do you want me to make you something to eat?" he asked. "Or some more tea?"

Magda shook her head. "No, thank you. I really just want to go to bed. And I think, under the circumstances, that I had better find some other place to stay tonight."

Blair wanted to argue with her, but in his heart he knew she was right. This was Jim's home, his sanctuary, and after tonight's revelations, he needed a safe place he could come back to and process. He felt a moment of concern for his partner, then pushed it away. _He'll be okay,_ he thought, _he knows the area around here, he'll be paying attention; he won't let anyone sneak up on him_. "Okay," he capitulated, "I know a good hotel not far from here. But it's my treat." He held up his hand as she opened her mouth. "Nope, I insist. You thought you were going to be staying with me. And you didn't ask for this, either."

He left a note for Jim, in case he came back while they were gone, and took Magda to the hotel. He got her settled there, with a fresh cup of tea – fortunately, her room had a coffeemaker – the numbers for the loft and his cell phone, and a promise that he would pick her up for lunch the next day.

When he got back to the loft, the note was still on the kitchen table, and there was no sign that Jim had returned. He put away the makings of his derailed dinner and made himself a salad, but only picked at it, finding that he had little appetite. In spite of his confidence about Jim's ability to handle trouble, he was starting to worry. _What if he's zoned_? he thought. _What if he was so distracted by all this that someone snuck up on him and knocked him out? He could be lying in an alley somewhere, bleeding_...

He mentally shook himself sharply. _Get a grip, Sandburg,_ he told himself, fighting the urge to go out and start looking for Jim. _He hasn't been gone that long, and he's got a lot to think about. Give it a few more hours, and then you can call in the cavalry_. Sighing, he put on one of his meditation CDs and settled on the couch with a pile of anthropology journals that he needed to catch up on.

He had almost reached the end of the pile, and the end of his patience, when the door opened and Jim walked in. Blair breathed a sigh of relief, and scrambled off the couch to greet him. "Hey, man, I was starting to get worried. You okay?"

"I didn't get mugged or anything, if that's what you mean," Jim said shortly, hanging up his coat. "Sorry. I guess I just lost track of time." He glanced cautiously around the loft.

"S'okay," Blair replied, "I know you've got a lot on your mind." He noticed Jim's surreptitious canvass of the loft and said, "She decided, all things considered, that it would be better if she stayed at a hotel tonight." He saw Jim visibly relax. "You want something to eat? I could make you some eggs."

Jim gave a faint smile at that, as if he appreciated the concession Blair was making by offering him eggs for dinner. "No, thanks, I'm not hungry." He headed towards the stairs to their bedroom.

"Do you want to talk about this?" Blair asked.

Jim stopped, hand on the stair railing. "No. Not right now. I'm tired and I just want to go to bed."

"Are you mad at me?" He knew it was a stupid question, but it had been dancing around at the back of his mind for hours. After all, if he hadn't asked Magda to stay at the loft, maybe none of this would have happened.

Jim sighed and walked back over to Blair, grasping his shoulders gently and looking into his eyes. "No, I'm not mad at you. I'm just exhausted and I haven't got the energy to talk about this right now."

"I feel like this is somehow my fault," Blair said unhappily.

"It'd be a lot easier if it was," Jim admitted, with a wan smile. "Then I could yell at you, and you could yell back, and we'd be pissed at each other for a while, then we'd make up and everything would be okay. But it's not. It isn't anyone's fault…or it's the fault of so many people, I don't know where to start…." He trailed off.

"Go," Blair said, pushing him towards the stairs. "Go upstairs, try and get some sleep. We can figure it all out tomorrow." He was absurdly relieved to hear that Jim wasn't mad at him.

Jim slid his hand around the back of Blair's neck and pulled him close, their foreheads touching. He kissed Blair gently, then released him and headed for the stairs. At the bottom he stopped again and said, "You coming up soon?"

"Yeah," he replied, "I'll just clean up down here; I'll be right up."

Jim climbed the stairs and Blair could hear him moving around, getting ready for bed. He shut everything off downstairs, checked all the doors and windows, and made his own preparations for sleep, although he thought it would be a miracle if either of them got any. To his surprise, though, exhaustion claimed him the moment he stretched out against Jim's warm back.

* * *

He stumbled downstairs the next morning, grabbing the cup of coffee Jim held out for him on his way to the shower. By the time he left the bathroom, feeling far more human, Jim was strapping on his shoulder holster and getting ready to leave. "Did you get any sleep at all?" he asked Jim. 

"Some," Jim replied, shrugging. "You coming to the station today?"

"I hadn't planned on it, I've got some meetings at Rainier this morning," Blair admitted. "Why, do you need me to?"

"No, there's nothing that can't wait. You free for lunch?"

"Uh…no, I'm…I'm meeting Aunt Magda for lunch." When Jim didn't say anything, Blair added quickly, "You could come with us, if you want. I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

"No," Jim said quickly, reaching out and squeezing Blair's shoulder, "thanks anyway, but three's a crowd. I'll see you tonight."

"Count on it," Blair said. As Jim turned to leave, Blair grabbed his hand, pulled him in close, and gave him a hard, passionate kiss. "Be careful," he whispered.

"Always," Jim replied, smiling.

The silence in the loft echoed once he had left. Blair sighed, and went to finish getting dressed. He knew it wasn't Jim's intention, or Magda's, but he was starting to feel a little bit like a wishbone.

His meetings at Rainier went quickly, and he picked Magda up at the hotel around noon. She looked better than she had last night, but was still subdued. She clearly hadn't gotten much more sleep than Jim had. He took her to a seafood place that had just opened on the waterfront. Because it was the middle of the week, and business was slow, they managed to get a table with a nice view of the bay.

Once they had ordered, and the waiter had taken their menus, an awkward silence fell between them. Magda fidgeted, pale and nervous, looking as if she had a million questions but was too apprehensive to ask any of them. So he jumped in, and asked her about the gallery, and her latest pottery project, and in this way most of lunch was taken up with a description of the new show she was opening in a few months and the new glaze she was experimenting with. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to her about Jim; he did, but he figured that after last night's shock it would be a good idea to reestablish some normalcy first. The idea proved to be a good one. By the end of lunch the color was back in her cheeks and she was more animated, laughing as she described to him how she'd accidentally blown up three of her pots by using a glaze with traces of magnesium in it.

"All right," she said, once the lunch plates had been cleared away and they had ordered coffee, "that's enough about me. Tell me about your life." She looked up at him anxiously, and Blair realized that this was a veiled plea for information about Jim. When he hesitated, unsure of where to begin, she said, "The last time I heard from you, you were excited about moving into this old warehouse downtown."

"Oh, yeah," he said, smiling wryly. "Well, it _was_ great, but it blew up, because – unbeknownst to me – there was a drug lab operating next door." He made a reassuring gesture at her look of concern. "I was fine. But I didn't have any place to live, so Jim said I could stay with him for a week or so, until I found something else." He grinned sheepishly. "Uh…that was four years ago." She looked confused, and Blair added quickly, "You know Jim's a cop, right?"

"No," she said quietly. "I knew that he had been in the military, but only because I saw the article in News. I didn't know what had happened to him after that."

"He's a detective with the Cascade Police Department. Has been for almost ten years now. Two years ago he was Officer of the Year." He watched her absorb that, watched her mouth curve in a proud smile that was suppressed as quickly as it had come.

"So how did you become friends with a cop? Wait, don't tell me, you got arrested at some protest or campus sit-in…." The deadpan look she gave him was so like Jim's that it took his breath away again.

"No, no, nothing like that," he said, waving his hands in the air and scrambling to remember the cover story. He wasn't ready to reveal the secret of Jim's senses just yet. "I…I decided to do my dissertation on law enforcement as an example of a closed society. I asked if I could ride along with some of the detectives on the force, and I got assigned to Jim. In exchange, I've been kinda helping them with some of their cases, trying to apply a scientific view, an anthropological view, when it looks like it'll help."

"Naomi must be beside herself," Magda murmured.

"Yeah, she was pretty upset at first," he said. "But I think she's gotten used to the idea, now. Detach with love, you know?" He shared a smile with her at the use of the familiar phrase.

"So you gave up on your other topic? The one that had to do with people with enhanced senses…you called them watchmen, or something?"

"Uh…yeah, Sentinels. Yeah, I…I gave up on that. Uh, it proved to be really hard to find someone with all five senses enhanced." Which wasn't a complete lie, he thought. It _had_ been pretty hard to find Jim.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Magda said. "You always sounded so excited about it. Even as a child, you were fascinated by that kind of stuff. Do you remember how you were always asking me questions about my grandfather?"

"That's right, he was a professional wine taster, wasn't he?" Blair said, suddenly remembering. Then the pieces of the puzzle fell into place and he stifled a gasp. Magda's grandfather – it must be her side of the family that carried the Sentinel genes. He opened his mouth to ask her a question, then closed it quickly. If he wasn't careful, he'd spill the beans, and he didn't want that, yet. Maybe there'd be time, later, to ask her about it.

With the mention of family, Magda had fallen silent, watching her hands clasped together nervously on the table. She took a deep breath, and, almost inaudibly, and without looking up at him, said, "So, tell me about him. What's he like?"

"He's the best person I've ever known," he said solemnly. "He's honest, caring, compassionate, and loyal to a fault. He's strong, but surprisingly gentle. People sometimes think because he's a cop, he's not very smart, but that's not true. He's a very deep guy, but he just doesn't talk about it very much, so people tend to assume he hasn't got anything to say. I think he prefers that sometimes, though. He's a very private person and he doesn't like drawing attention to himself. He's got a really good sense of humor, but he doesn't let it out often enough. When things get to him, though, he tends to keep it bottled up, and I usually have to work pretty hard to get him to talk to me." He stopped as he realized that he sounded like a lovesick teenager. He hadn't meant to say that much, but in his relief at finally getting to talk to someone about how he felt about Jim, he'd let his mouth run away with him.

He'd watched Magda as he was talking, saw a brief smile flit across her face, only to be replaced by what looked like an old, familiar sorrow. Now she met his eyes with a candid gaze. "You two are more than just roommates, aren't you?"

Blair ducked his head, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face or the faint heat that rose into his cheeks. "Yeah," he admitted. "For about six months now." He looked over at her. She was staring off across the bay, her face still and unreadable. He groaned and slapped himself mentally on the forehead. "I'm sorry. I bet that really weirds you out, under the circumstances."

She turned back to look at him, eyebrows raised in what he took for surprise. "No," she said quickly, "not at all. I was just…thinking." She toyed with her coffee cup. "I think, given everything that's happened, that I'm going to head back to Santa Fe tomorrow morning."

He reached out and took her hands in his. "Don't go yet," he begged, "you just got here, and it's been so long since I've seen you." She looked unconvinced, and he made another appeal. "Stay at least one more day. We'll have dinner together tomorrow night. Maybe I can talk Jim into joining us." He caught the look of mixed sadness and hope that crossed her face, and in that moment became determined to do everything he could to reconcile her and Jim. "Please?"

"Ah, Blair," she sighed softly, "you are such the eternal optimist. That's definitely something you got from Naomi, not me." She smiled at him sadly. "One more day, then." She straightened in her chair and squeezed his hands. "I think the staff here are ready for us to leave. Are there other things you need to do this afternoon?"

"No," he said, "I'm all yours. I thought we could drive around town and I'd show you some of the sights of Cascade." Remembering that she was, in fact, pretty familiar with the town, he backtracked. "Or, we could do something else, if you wanted…maybe check out a museum or some galleries…"

"No, I think that sounds wonderful," she said firmly. "It's been long enough since I lived here that everything looks different. Plus, I'll get to see it through your eyes."

She insisted on paying for lunch, and as they walked back to Blair's car, she said, "So, tell me what you've learned from observing a police department…."

"Oh, it's fascinating," he began eagerly. "There are all these rituals…rituals to get into the society, as well as rituals once you're in…"

* * *

Blair banged through the door of the loft, dropped his backpack, shucked off his coat but managed to completely miss the hook, and toed his shoes off. "Sorry, sorry I'm late…I know I've got dinner tonight…just lost track of time…" 

"Easy, Chief, it's no problem," Jim said from the couch, with a pointed look at Blair's coat where it had fallen to the floor. Blair obediently picked the coat up and hung it properly on the hook. "I got takeout from that Cuban place near the station on the way home."

"You did? Wow, thanks, man…that's really cool," Blair said, nonplussed.

"I figured you might forget about dinner." Jim's tone was light, but the expression on his face was somber. Blair sighed, and headed into the kitchen, trying to figure out how to broach the subject of dinner tomorrow night.

"You want a beer?" he asked. Jim shook his head. Blair got himself one and settled on the couch next to Jim. "So, rough day?"

"No, not really, all things considered," Jim replied. "It looks like the Sanchez case is definitely going to court, though."

Blair nodded, and took a swig of beer. "No real surprise, there." They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Blair asked, "You ready to eat?"

Jim shook his head again. "I'm not hungry right now. You go ahead, though, and start if you want." Blair took another drink, trying to be patient and wait Jim out. It paid off. "So…uh…how was your day?" Jim asked.

"Good. It was good," Blair said, nodding. "We had lunch at that new place down by the bay, then went around and saw some of the sights. I took her to Cascade Tower, told her all about the Switchman case…." He rolled his eyes at Jim's look. "Okay, not _all_ about the case. I didn't tell her about your senses."

"But you did talk about me?"

"Jim, we work together, we live together, and we're sleeping together. It's kinda hard for me NOT to talk about you." Jim gave him a trenchant look, and he grinned, unrepentant.

"So what was her reaction to that?" Blair didn't have to ask what he meant.

"She was surprisingly okay with it." He paused and looked at Jim. "I think she'd just really like the chance to get to know you," he said softly.

Jim didn't say anything at first, staring off across the loft, jaw muscle clenched. Then, so quietly Blair could barely hear him, he asked, "So, what's she like as a mother?"

"She was always the first person I went to when I was hurt, or in trouble," Blair said solemnly. "I mean, Naomi loves me, I know that, but sometimes she'd get really caught up in ideology and start making a big deal out of something, rather than just talk to me about it. The first year I was in school, I wasn't doing very well." He caught Jim's skeptical glance. "No, seriously, I was getting pretty bad grades, I wasn't paying attention, I was mouthing off to the teachers…" Jim snorted, and he grinned. "I just wasn't used to the idea of school, man. For six years I was pretty much allowed to do what I wanted, and for the last three it had just been me and Mom, traveling around the world, so suddenly ending up in Santa Fe and going to school every day was a bit of a shock."

"Anyway," Blair continued, "they wanted to hold me back a year. And Naomi just went, like, postal. She accused the school of discriminating against me because I was from a single-parent family, threatened to call the governor, get articles published in the local newspaper…but the one thing she didn't do was ask me what was going on. I couldn't talk to her about how I felt without her getting worked up and ranting about 'the bourgeois hierarchy of American education'. And Magda wasn't living with us yet, so I didn't really have anyone else to talk to about it."

"So did they hold you back?" Jim asked.

"No, they were pretty intimidated by Naomi, so they agreed that I could move ahead, but I was on probation for the first semester. The thing was, by second grade I had pretty much adjusted and started to really like school, so it wasn't a problem anymore. But then, when I was about nine, I started to have problems again." At Jim's raised eyebrow, he shook his head. "Not academic. A group of kids at school started to harass me about being Jewish, about not having a dad, about being smart." Sensing Jim tense, he patted his knee reassuringly. "Nothing serious. Just middle-school stuff – teasing, name-calling, pushing – but once things got a little out of hand and I came home with a black eye. Once Aunt Magda had cleaned me up and made sure I was okay, she sat me down and got me to tell her all about what had been going on at school. She gave me some suggestions for how to deal with the bullies, but mostly she just listened to me and was supportive. And she didn't go off the deep end. I think she did call the school and talk to my principal, but she kept it pretty low-key. Not like Naomi." He smiled ruefully, shaking his head. "I love my mom, man, you know I do, but sometimes…anyway, that's the kind of mom Magda is. She's consistent, dependable, honest, supportive." He looked at Jim somberly. "I wish you had gotten the chance to find that out for yourself."

There was a long pause, then Jim sighed, "Yeah, me too." He reached for Blair's hand and gave it a brief squeeze. "Thanks, Chief." He got up from the couch and crossed over to the windows, staring out at the city.

Blair waited as long as he could, but finally his need for knowledge outweighed his desire to give Jim space. "So, what are you thinking?" he asked.

"I'm thinking the Ellison men are too damned good at holding grudges," Jim said darkly. "I think we should try to learn another way of reacting to things." He watched the city lights for a long time, then said, "So maybe you could ask her if she'd like to have dinner with us tomorrow night, here at the loft?"

For the second time that day Blair was unable to prevent the grin that spread across his face. "Yeah, sure, I'd be glad to," he said. "What about Steven? Do you want to invite him, too?"

"He's out of town on a business trip," Jim replied. "Anyway, I wouldn't mind keeping things more…low-key, at first."

Blair understood. Even though they were both trying, it was still sometimes hard for Jim and Steven to overcome the resentment of each other they had learned in childhood. He got up from the couch and went to stand behind his partner, sliding his arms around Jim's waist and resting his head against the broad, strong back. He felt Jim exhale, felt some of the tension in his body dissipate. "Hey, man, did I mention that whenever I start to feel like I really know you, you do something that flat-out amazes me?" He felt Jim's chuckle, deep in his chest.

"No," Jim replied, "but isn't it nice to know you'll never be bored?" He turned to face Blair, and Blair saw a faint smile playing around his lips. "I said I'd try, Chief. I'm not promising anything."

"I have complete faith in you," Blair said, his voice low and rough. Jim bent and kissed him; gently at first, but then it deepened and grew more passionate. Blair felt an ache stirring in his belly that had nothing to do with food. When Jim pulled away slightly, he said, breathlessly, "Let's take this upstairs and you can amaze me some more."

Jim grinned. "Sounds good to me, Chief."

* * *

Magda sat at the table and watched the two men in the kitchen clean up the dinner dishes. She put her hand on the cool metal of the table, needing to ground herself, needing sensation to prove that she was really here, that this wasn't a dream. 

It had been awkward at first. When Blair let her in, she could tell he was nervous; bouncing on the balls of his feet, overflowing with energy. She was disappointed that it hadn't been Jim that had answered the door. Then Jim had come over, and taken her hands in his, and kissed her on the cheek, drawing her into the loft. Blair had relaxed then, giving his partner a warm look, and had taken over the initial conversational duties. He had regaled her, both before and during dinner, with stories about the cases he had worked on with Jim. There was still something they weren't telling her, though. She could tell, for when she'd ask questions about how they knew something or how they were able to find someone, she'd catch a meaningful glance between the two of them, a rapid non-verbal exchange, and then Blair would jump in with a quick explanation or a clever excuse.

Although to be honest, she hadn't been listening that carefully. Nor had she really been paying attention to what she was eating. It was almost overwhelming to think that she was sitting next to her son, her Jimmy, and that he was looking at her, talking to her. It was more than she had ever hoped for. He still didn't know what to call her; he hadn't called her by name the entire time she was there, but that was fine, it didn't matter. That would come. What mattered now was that she was here, with him, and that maybe there was a chance that they could rebuild some kind of relationship with each other. And then maybe she could extend a similar olive branch to Steven. For the first time in what seemed like a very long time, she was starting to feel like she had hope.

When Blair reached a lull in the stories, she asked Jim some questions herself. Basic, simple things, like about his college years, his early days in the military, being a police officer. He answered; light, easy responses, watching her with his cool blue gaze, mostly cautious but with a hint of warmth. She avoided anything that might be painful or difficult, not wanting to damage the fragile bond of trust she felt growing between them.

He was so like William. He had her eyes and her dark, straight brows, but that quick and brilliant smile, that smile she was willing to bet that very few people other than Blair ever got to see, that was all William's. As was his aloofness, and the tendency he had to keep apart from others, to isolate himself when hurt. William, however, had become bitter in his solitude, while Jim, in spite of the tragedies he had endured, had continued to try and help people.

Blair, too, had that desire to help people. She was so proud of him, so pleased by the man he had become. He had Naomi's boundless energy and her cheerful optimism, but where Naomi was flighty and a little self-focused, Blair had an open, warm heart and was always thinking of others. Particularly Jim. Watching them together, she could plainly see that he adored Jim, and that the feeling was mutual. It amazed her that anyone could miss it.

As she watched them in the kitchen, the child of her heart and the child of her body, she was forced to admit that maybe she was not as bad a mother as she'd thought herself to be. Maybe, in spite of her mistakes, there were some things she had done right. Maybe now she could move forward, instead of always looking back towards the past. And maybe then she could start to find room in her heart to forgive herself.


End file.
